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Briarmeadow

The recently remonikeredMargaret Long Wisdom High School is prepping for its scheduled student body transplant as the school year winds down. The shot above shows the main entrance of the school’s almost-ready new building, tucked behind the old one along Hillcroft Ave. south of Beverly Hills St. That older structure, which cut its Confederate ties about a year ago, should be getting erased altogether starting in June, a reader involved with the project tells Swamplot.

Here’s the flip side view of the glassy main entrance above, which should be unlocked in time for fall classes:

Currently rising behind Lee Senior High School: Lee Senior High School. The new building is going up on the south side of the block east of Hillcroft between Beverly Hill St. and Skyline Dr., 1 block south of Richmond Ave. The first foundation slab was poured last Friday, and steel has been going up this week— pictured above are the servery, kitchen, and utility areas, according to the Twitter narration of Brent Oldbury. (The distant Williams Tower can be seen peeking through the steel on the right.)

A north-facing entrance is planned, allowing the school to hold on to the current Beverly Hill St. address despite shifting to the Skyline side of the block. The old building (behind the steel to the left, in the photo above) will watch its younger, prettier replacement going up next door until demolition in early 2017 makes way for sports facilities and parking.

A few renderings were presented at an October 2014community meeting about the new building’s construction and timeline:

New signage is up already at the former home of the Fish & the Knife restaurant at 7801 Westheimer. The 13,000-sq.-ft. sushi nightclub at the corner of Stoney Brook opened last February after 4 years of preparation, then closed after only 9 months of operations — with promises of a reopening after a “rebranding.” But it appears that a restaurant touting itself as “Lubbock’s Finest Dining Experience” is now preparing to open a Houston branch in the space instead. “The restaurant is already hiring a full retinue of staff,” notes Houstonia‘s Katharine Shillcut of the new Churrasca Brazilian Steakhouse, “but construction and cleaning appears to be underway and could take a while.”

Tweaks to a 1977 Briarmeadow home have left it looking rather peachy inside, thanks to a dream-state color wash. The heavy-roofed French-ish property last sold in 2013, for $291,040, and has appeared in an assortment of listings and relistings ever since. Updated in that interim, the westward-facing home is now attempting a flip at $409,000. Previous listings sought a high of $489K in July 2013, with reductions to $459K in September 2013, $449K in April 2014 (which snagged a contract but not a closing), and $429K in July 2014 — before taking a breather from the market in August. Renovations picked the bones clean and added new ingredients . . .

SAYONARA FOR FISH & THE KNIFE? Eater Houston’s Jakeisha Wilmore is reporting that Fish & the Knife will close at the end of this month. Wilmore is basing her report on an interview with a Yelp reviewer who said that management at the Briarmeadow sushi house canceled her upcoming holiday event and told her that the restaurant was about to shut down. Wilmore could not reach management for confirmation, but should this really be the end for the 9-month-old restaurant, it would prove an abrupt final act to a bizarre and dramatic saga. The not-designed-by-Tony-Chi restaurant finally opened this February after a roller-coaster ride of a buildout that dragged on for 3 years. Wilmore’s Yelp source told her that the Fish & the Knife’s manager told her “financial challenges” were the cause of the possibly imminent shuttering. The restaurant’s demise might not be lamented in all quarters: On weekends Fish & the Knife transformed into a nightclub, and residents of nearby neighborhoods had become disgruntled with partiersparking along their streets and leaving trash behind. Update, 2:15 pm: Fish & the Knife management tells CultureMap’s Eric Sandler that the restaurant’s closing will be temporary and that the Fish & the Knife will reopen after a rebranding, while the weekend nightclub activities would continue in the meantime. Sandler also reports that opening chef, former Iron Chef America contestant Bob Iacovone, has returned to his hometown of New Orleans. [Eater Houston; Click2Houston; CultureMap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox

An attorney representing international hotel and restaurant designer Tony Chi has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the owners of the Fish and the Knife, complaining that the recently opened Houston sushi restaurant and nightclub has “repeatedly and intentionally” claimed that Chi was responsible for the restaurant’s design. “As you most certainly know,” the letter reads, “Tony Chi had no role whatsoever in connection with the Fish & The Knife and most certainly is not answerable for its operation, particularly its delayed opening.”

A Facebook post published by the restaurant shortly before its February 13th opening claimed that Tony Chi had designed the interior — and implied that his involvement bore some responsibility for the restaurant’s notablydelayed debut: “The owner commissioned Tony Chi, famed architect and interior designer, to fit the restaurant into his relentless schedule,” reads the post (which may also have been issued as a press release) in a sentence that directly follows a reference to repeated postponements of the restaurant’s opening. It then goes on to name-drop several of Chi’s former clients: “Based in New York City, Chi owns and operates a global design powerhouse that has an unrivalled reputation in the hospitality industry. Some of Chi’s designs include restaurants for Wolfgang Puck, Alain Ducasse and Michael Mina. In addition to restaurants, he designed many Ritz-Carlton, Park Hyatt, Intercontinental and Mandarin Oriental hotels around the world.” But Chi’s designs do not appear to include Fish and the Knife.

O ye of little faith, casting doubts here and there that a little 13,000-sq.-ft. standalone fine dining and lounging experience on Westheimer across Stoney Brook from AutoZone would ever open its doors after a mere 3 years of construction, a few long silences, and working so hard behind the scenes to get every detail right! It takes time, and actual anticipation, to truly earn the status of Houston’s Most Anticipated Restaurant. So take this: Fish and the Knife opens today. As in: You can park your car in the big parking lot out back, walk right in through the big wooden doors, and order yourself some sushi and a Japanese-style steak. And maybe this weekend, or some other big weekend night soon, wiggle your tail and fins to the rhythms and the flashing lights in the transformed 4,000-sq.-ft. “Las Vegas-style” nightclub inside.

Okay, but really, what took this place so long to open? Here’s the owner of the new spot at 7801 Westheimer, trying valiantly to explain it all:

On-again off-again would-be Westheimer sushi-nightclub debutante Fish and the Knife has given up on target opening dates, reports Eater Houston. “The big debut is back on track,” reports Darla Guillen in a post that includes actual photos of the actual completed interior at 7801 Westheimer. After almost 3-and-a-half years of construction and several blown promised-opening deadlines, she writes, “the owner is (understandably) reluctant to announce an official date.” But, um, the restaurant is “definitely on schedule to open soon, and is currently hiring staff.”

Update, 3 pm: A daring update to Eater’s report notes the owner now “expects to be open by Feb. 10.”

This Briarmeadow contemporary with broken-pediment facade bleached its previously ruddy exterior as part of an all-over renovation sometime after last December. That’s when it was bought by its current seller — for $247,000. It’s back on the market now, lighter in color but heftier in price, listed for $449,900. The home’s dog-leg driveway across the front lawn still feeds into a side-entry garage, now showing a newly uncovered cinema-screen expanse of wall to the street. Replacement landscaping at the base of that blankness will screen more of it, eventually. Despite the speedy roof-to-garden change-outs outside and flooring-to-cabinetry swap-outs inside, the listing explicitly declares that the transformed 1977 property is “NOT A FLIP.”

Nobody named the correct neighborhood! But not all of the guesses were wrong. Which one was right?

How about this snarky entry:

Single story, black aluminum frame windows, vaulted ceilings, and a plethora of ceiling fans indicate this is a pre-oil bust tract home. The house has had some custom woodwork installed by a weekend warrior owner, but they never got around to staining or painting it. I’m guessing west or southwest, close to a Home Depot and elementary school.

So let’s plot those coordinates: 1.4 miles to the Westheimer Home Depot. 1.1 miles to Piney Point Elementary. Close enough! Howard Hughes, you just won a one-year individual membership in the Rice Design Alliance. Congratulations!

Well, 60s, not 50s. Bathrooms are more spacious. So there’s that. Then someone did some very interesting handi-crafting there in the 80s, during that “let’s do everything pink and blue” period “and while we’re at it, let’s bump out windows and then turn a boat or two upside down and make them the ceiling.”